New Gaming Build Advice - £1k budget.

[OldSchool87]

Hi all. Looking to buy a new build imminently and have no idea what I'm looking for (or at least how to compare the specs properly within my budget). I've used the template to list the details. Any recommendations/suggestions/comments are all very welcome.
Thanks in advance.

Approximate Purchase Date: Today! Ideally within the next week.

Budget Range: £1k maximum (+ shipping). The site needs to have a finance/credit option on purchase!

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming (WoW, CS:GO, Skyrim ...), streaming games, Internet browsing

Are you buying a monitor: No

Parts to Upgrade: Everything internal to the case. I'll use my existing peripherals and update them when I can.

Do you need to buy OS: Yes. Windows 7 will be purchased.

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Overclockers (or anywhere that can offer a finance option)

Location: Leeds, UK

Parts Preferences: No preference - just best quality for my budget.

Overclocking: Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: SLI Yes

Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

Additional Comments: Not bothered about aesthetics. Would like a quiet PC. I'd like to be able to upgrade it in the future and don't want to have to do a complete 'revamp' like I'm having to do now!

Why Are You Upgrading: I have an old Titan Krypt AMD Athlon II X4 640 3GHz Quad Core DDR3 system and have found that recently I've really felt the need to upgrade. Graphics settings are low on all games I play, CPU usage struggles when trying to stream games and all-in-all, I'm ready for an upgrade.

Parts I have selected: Comes to £992 with shipping.

Intel Core i7-4790K 4.00GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £281.99

EVGA GeForce GTX 970 SC ACX 2.0 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (04G-P4-2974-KR) £265.99

Asus Maximus VII Gene Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £154.99

Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (HX316C10FBK2/8) £65.99

SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £59.99

Crucial MX100 128GB SATA 2.5” 7mm SSD + 9.5mm Adapter (CT128MX100SSD1) £58.44

Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD10EZEX - OEM ** Single Platter ** HDD £46.99

Cooler Master Hyper 412S CPU Cooler £28.99

Samsung SH-224DB/RSBS 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - Retail £19.99

*No wireless card needed.

I've used the $1250 build as a base: http://elitegamingcomputers.com/top-gaming-computers/#21

Would really appreciate some comments before I purchase.
Many thanks in advance.

 

[Moonstick2]

To be honest, there's not much there worth changing.

It's arguable that you'll be just as happy with an i5 at £100 less, if you're set on spending £1000 then the only thing worth upgrading would be the SSD to a larger size - your GPU is already plenty for 1080p. But otherwise just stick with the i7 - it certainly won't disappoint.

You say Win7 will be purchased, but it's not in your list - is it outside of your £1000 budget?

Looking again, at this kind of budget and with that CPU you could get faster RAM - e.g. 2400 MHz Kingston HyperX 8GB for only £6 more.

Scan Computers also offer finance, whether they'll be cheaper for the above components or not you'll have to check.

 

[OldSchool87]

To be honest, there's not much there worth changing.

It's arguable that you'll be just as happy with an i5 at £100 less, if you're set on spending £1000 then the only thing worth upgrading would be the SSD to a larger size - your GPU is already plenty for 1080p. But otherwise just stick with the i7 - it certainly won't disappoint.

You say Win7 will be purchased, but it's not in your list - is it outside of your £1000 budget?

Looking again, at this kind of budget and with that CPU you could get faster RAM - e.g. 2400 MHz Kingston HyperX 8GB for only £6 more.

Scan Computers also offer finance, whether they'll be cheaper for the above components or not you'll have to check.

Hi Moonstick2,

Thanks for your reply. Sorry, I should have been more explicit with the original post; I need an OS so Windows 7 will be bought regardless. The £1k is for the hardware upgrades I'll be getting.

Thanks for the RAM suggestion (to be honest I just chose the first ones I came across). I'll go with the Kingston HyperX as you suggest.

The i5/i7 debate has been playing on my mind. I know that for gaming a decent i5 will be fine but *just in case* in the future I'd like to do any video editing/processing, for an extra £100 and still within my budget, I thought I'd go for the i7. As long as it's within budget and won't decrease performance then it's fine. I'll have a look into a bigger SSD - thanks for the tip!

 

[Moonstick2]

A lot of people get misled into thinking that video editing and rendering requires an i7. It doesn't - an i5, even an i3 are perfectly capable of such tasks, but an i7 does it faster than an i5 which does it faster than an i3. From benchmarks I've seen, the i7 is ~10-20% faster depending on the tasks.

If someone is a professional where time spent editing/converting literally has a measureable cost to their business, then i7s make sense. If someone takes it up as part of an enthusiastic, serious amateur hobby then again it makes sense, and normally they'll have spent way in excess of the cost of an i7 on their camera/recording equipment. On the other hand, if someone is doing it just once a week using stuff from their home camcorder that cost less than twice the price of the i7 that they 'need', then in truth their kidding themselves.

Getting need out of the way, it comes down to want. It's silly to skimp on other parts to buy an i7 but you're not doing that. A bigger SSD is again more of a want than a need from your point of view - a second SSD is something easy enough to add down the line if you want to, more so than a processor upgrade.

I don't know your financial situation. I'd say if you're stretching yourself with this build (credit has to be paid for eventually) then be sensible and get the i5 and save yourself £100. If you're set on paying £1000 for a computer then get the i7 and keep it for as long as you can.

Incidentally, prices change daily - the i7 is now £270 at OCUK, your graphics card jumped to £290. At that price on the latter, consider the MSI GTX970, which is the same price but a lot quieter by all accounts.